Falling
by Threepwillow
Summary: Tonks understands falling better than most people, but she doesn't understand Swedish, and she definitely doesn't understand how Kingsley Shacklebolt can always be just one step ahead of her. :::Kingsley/Tonks, oneshot, pseudo-blanketfic:::


Nymphadora Tonks, B-level Auror and Offensive Sorcery Specialist, lay on her back and sighed up at the sky above her. It was thick, murky indigo, the clouds giving it a lighter cast than it would have had on its own, and there were very few stars and no moon. From the roots out, her hair shifted to a similar hue, in her glum boredom. She rolled over on the carpet and sighed again.

"Please just sleep, Auror Tonks. We will arrive in the morning."

From the pillow of her folded arms, Tonks looked over at the carpet's other passenger, A-level Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt, who lay nearly motionless on his back beside her. He looked as though he hadn't spoken at all; he was like a great dark statue there, the only distinct color on him the gold of his earring. Tonks rather wished he'd be a little less impassive. It would even be more reassuring if he were angry with her.

He had every right to be angry with her.

This was the second mission Tonks had been sent on with Shacklebolt since she'd passed her Auror training. She'd done so with flying colors - or, well, with _colors_ at least, it was the _flying_ part that had become the problem. She'd aced the practical offense and defense examinations, done passably well at curse-breaking and potion identification. She spoke bits and pieces of enough languages to get by in...most of Europe. What Tonks had yet to do - not mandatory for promotion to full Auror, but which she'd ought to have done for this mission in particular - was to obtain her International Broomstick Flight permit. Tonks had always had a hard time with brooms, even in school, and while she could make it into the office (on a sunny day), she'd rather just Apparate any more. It was just that you couldn't really Apparate straight from London to Helsinki.

Moody, their T-level supervisor, had nearly taken her off the job. (He'd nearly taken off her _head_.) He was furious at her for failing the test for the third time, and was quite eager to replace her with Emmeline Vance. But Shacklebolt, strangely, had spoken up, offering up the magic carpet they were currently riding on, which he could fly competently. He'd saved her from Moody's rage and kept her on the mission. And Tonks could not for the life of her figure out why.

She peered down over the edge of the carpet, at the mountains and little villages passing by down below her, and sighed a third time. There were warming charms on the carpet, but Tonks could see the snow, and she knew that once they landed she'd be freezing. (At least it was a refreshing change of pace from endless miles of ocean.) Tonks hated the cold; she turned her hair a brilliant white out of irritation, and her eyes a piercing blue. Maybe that would help her _focus_ more, she thought, and keep her from getting distracted by this dumb broomstick thing or this strange Shacklebolt thing.

Or that really irritating gold thread that was dangling loose from the bottom of the carpet, flapping frayed in the wind. Tonks frowned at it. Her mother _hated_ loose threads like that, and had memorized and perfected a little snipping charm to trim them off her father's suits or her own robes, but for the life of her Tonks couldn't remember it. And she was at a funny angle anyway - knowing her she'd mess it up and wake Shacklebolt again. She'd just have to do it the Muggle way. Reaching around under the carpet, she grabbed on the thread and tugged. It scrunched out a little, but didn't come detached, so she pulled harder, and the thread began to dig into her fingers.

"Oh, come on," she hissed at it, and she curved around to tug on it with both hands. Finally, it came loose with an ominous _snap!_

Shacklebolt's eyes may as well have made the same sound as they shot open.

"Tonks!" he gasped...and that was all he had time to get out before the threads of the carpet fell away beneath them, the whole thing unraveling into tangled strands of gold and brown and royal purple.

Tonks knew she was falling. She understood falling better than most people, she figured. But she'd never really fallen from this high up before, and any spells she might have called to mind to save her from this life or death plummet just wouldn't come. As usual, it was Shacklebolt who had to bail her out, calmly gesturing with his wand and slowing their fall until they touched down lightly on the (surprisingly thin - Tonks had expected more, somehow) layer of unbroken snow.

As usual, it was Shacklebolt who had to save her.

-xxx-

They were in Sweden.

Tonks didn't particularly speak Swedish.

Neither, apparently, did Shacklebolt.

"I'm _sorry_," said Tonks for the umpteenth time. And truly, she was. She'd never understood much about flying, brooms or carpets or anything - always fancied that flying motorbike her mum's cousin had, but not much beyond that - and she'd had no idea she could cause something so catastrophic by yanking out just one little loose thread.

"It's all right, Tonks," Shacklebolt said to her, also for the umpteenth time. "Just concentrate on your warming charm and keep close. There are finally lights up ahead."

She looked, and he was right. Glowing in the distance, though it surely had to be past midnight, was a warm orange-hued light, that split into three lights clustered together as they got closer and closer. Tonks's hair flared out honey-orange too in relief.

"You're going to want to keep that to a minimum, too," he said. "This is most likely a Muggle village."

"Oh. Right." She pouted, and put her hair its regular brown-black.

But now Shacklebolt was studying on her. "Although..." he said, pondering. "Can you change your skin much, with that?"

"My face, sure thing, and my hands...might get a little harder to do further away from my head though."

"Shouldn't be a problem in this cold," he said. "I just thought things might be easier on us if perhaps you could pretend to be my sister."

"Ohhh!" Now she was catching on. Scrunching up her eyes and nose, Tonks focused as hard as she could on her Metamorphmagus abilities until her complexion was the darkest brown she could make it. "Is this all right, you think?"

"That should be fine. Now we just have to hope that one of the people living here will be kind enough to put us up....and possibly have a loom of some kind."

"You're really going to be able to weave that back together?" Tonks frowned down at the mess of crumpled string in Shacklebolt's broad hands.

"I am going to try."

"I'm _sorry_!" she wailed.

"It's all right."

The three lights they'd spotted turned out to be sitting at the top of a short, squat clock tower in what looked like some kind of town square. They'd entered through a few rows of equally short, squat buildings - some houses, some with obvious storefronts. It really was a tiny, quaint little town. Tonks almost thought it _could_ be a wizarding town after all, if those lamps up there weren't electric, and if the stores had been selling broomsticks and potionmaking supplies rather than sturdy winter coats and vacuum cleaners. The clock on the tower read nearly half past four - Tonks was surprised to find it that late, until she remembered about time zones and things, which she'd failed to keep track of as they cruised over Europe. There was no way anyone else was going to be out and about at this hour.

"What do we do?"

"We find the safest-looking house," said Shacklebolt, "and we knock."

"Right," she said. "Wand at the ready just in case?"

"I should hope that will not be necessary."

Shacklebolt's idea of the safest-looking house was one with a bright red door about five blocks down past the square. It was only one story, with a sloped, shingled roof and a little tree out by one corner. He knocked solidly on the door, a noise so loud it made Tonks start in the cold, quiet night, and then they waited.

"We're waking them up," Tonks fretted.

"Would you rather freeze outside until morning?"

Eventually a stocky blond man came to the door, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and frowning at the two dark strangers standing on his doorstep. Tonks tugged her cloak more snugly around her and made sure she could reach her wand if needed. He said something confused-sounding in Swedish, and Shacklebolt coughed a bit and then answered.

"Ah...English? Do you speak any English?"

The man in the house frowned a bit more deeply, studied on the two of them, and then retreated back into the house, leaving the door open. Tonks exchanged a look with Shacklebolt, perplexed, but the man came back shortly with a thinner blonde woman, presumably his wife, and muttered something to her.

"What is the matter?" she said to them, a bit defensive. Her accent was thick, but not so thick that Tonks couldn't understand her, and she sagged in relief.

"We were traveling and lost our way," Shacklebolt said vaguely. "We wondered if you could help us find somewhere to stay for the night."

"In, in," she said. "Here for now. Tomorrow we take you to inn, once they are open there. You need sleep, both. You are?"

"Er, my name is...Gideon," he said. "And this is my sister Molly."

"Yes, well, good she is sister. You have one bed for share."

"That's quite all right." Shacklebolt stepped across the threshold of the little house, and then turned and looked at Tonks. She suddenly realized what was being asked of her and scurried in after him, stumbling a little at the doorframe and following after the three of them.

"I am Kajsa," she said, "and he is Karl. My husband."

"Yes ma'am," said Tonks.

"We have room for you here," she said. "Do not know to where you were travel, that you will become lost and be here, but I am sorry for it. Sleep, sleep, and I feed you in the morning too."

"You are very kind," said Shacklebolt.

"Yes, thanks," said Tonks, almost as an afterthought.

"Now I sleep too, thank you," said Kajsa. She closed the door to the tiny room after them and shuffled back off down the little hall, leaving them alone.

Almost immediately Tonks relaxed back to her paler skin. "Whew. They're quite friendly, though, aren't they?"

"Indeed," said Shacklebolt. "Is that...is that tricky for you, then?"

"What?" said Tonks. "Oh, the morphing thing? Only for something that big, yeah," she said. "Just takes a bit more out'f you then you'd like, is all." She laughed a little. "We should have just told them we were - were married, or something. Engaged, even."

"I suppose," he said. "Though you - you would be a bit young."

"Hey, stranger things have happened." She sat down on the edge of the bed and started to tug off her heavy boots. "What was with the names you gave them, anyway? Gideon and Molly?"

"Oh," said Shacklebolt, quietly. "Gideon Prewett was just a - a very close friend of mine. His name came to mind first, I suppose."

"Was a friend? You have a falling out of sorts?"

"No," he said, somberly. "Gideon was killed."

Tonks blanched, extending even up to the roots of her hair before she managed to calm it down. "Whoa, really? Gosh I'm so sorry, I didn't - "

"It's all right. It's been quite a few years since then." He sat on the bed too, facing away from her, and removed his own boots, laying the mess of the unraveled carpet on the short chair that was the only other piece of furniture in the room. "Tonks, I - have you heard about..."

She leaned over and hung her thick outer cloak off the door handle. "Have I heard about what?" she said.

"Never mind. It's not anything."

"If you say so, Shacklebolt. Or _Gideon_, I mean," she added, smirking.

"Right," he said, finally cracking a small smile himself. "_Molly_."

"Oh, I _wish_ my name were something so plain and wonderful as Molly. I've still got no idea what my mother was thinking, honestly." She yawned quite vigorously on her last syllable, and it occurred to Tonks that perhaps she did need to sleep after all. Shacklebolt seemed to be feeling quite the same, and he tugged back one corner of the thick stack of blankets.

They lay down next to each other on the little bed, somewhat awkwardly at first but really in quite a similar way as their magic carpet voyage. Tonks didn't feel too strange about it, even though he wasn't really her brother - she'd done much stranger, much more invasive things as part of her Auror training, and sharing a bed with a fellow agent in the field didn't seem nearly so bizarre any more.

Besides, she realized, he was actually quite warm.

-xxx-

Tonks woke in the morning to Shacklebolt's broad hand shaking her heavily at the shoulder. "Tonks! Come on, Auror Tonks!"

"Wh...wotcher, Shacklebolt?"

"That Kajsa woman will be back in here any minute now and you're certainly looking far too pale to be any sister of mine," he said. "Come now."

"Right," she said with a yawn. Screwing up her face, Tonks turned her skin darker again, and then rolled over in the blankets and stuffed her face back into the pillow. "Goodnight."

"Tonks, we're going to have to leave now. It's nearly ten, we can't keep taking advantage of these poor people."

That woke Tonks up. "Nearly ten!" she hissed, sitting bolt upright. "But that means - "

"Yes," said Shacklebolt, sounding a bit reluctant. "It's most likely too late to intercept that transaction. We're going to have to go back to headquarters and regroup."

"Which we can't do until you manage to repair that carpet," said Tonks, slumping a little in the mess of the blankets. "Sorry."

"It's all right. Now let's just get to this inn they've told us about, and then see about finding a loom. Or at least something we could transfigure _into_ a loom, I suppose."

"I was always pretty ace at Transfiguration!" said Tonks. "I'll do whatever you need from me." She wormed out of the bed and scrubbed a hand through her short, bristly black hair, then tugged out her wand and swept herself once-over with a quick cleaning charm. Tonks hated the soap-scummy feeling it always left on the back of her neck, but it was much faster and more convenient than a real shower. From the way Shacklebolt kept scratching behind his ear, he'd probably done the same.

The breakfast Kajsa had made for them was plain, but it tasted just fine, and she at least had good tea. After they'd eaten, her husband Karl walked them through the streets until they came upon the large, rickety inn. Tonks was relieved to discover that it really wasn't nearly as cold when the sun was up. For some reason she seemed to have convinced herself that Sweden would be freezing. The matron of the inn was an elderly woman named Olga; she spoke even less English than Kajsa did, but she and Shacklebolt managed to work out not only an amazing rate for the rooms (plural) that they were staying in, but also to get the name and address of an elderly man who sold tapestries out of his home, whom they were assured would have a loom on which Shacklebolt could repair the carpet. Tonks was still feeling horrible for her mistake, but at least it was looking like they could fix everything.

Except for the assignment that they'd missed.

Shacklebolt had sent a message back to their headquarters at the Ministry to let them know that things had fallen through. Tonks was quite glad she couldn't really hear Moody's end of the conversation - even the usually stoic Shacklebolt was getting a bit flustered during the argument, and the conversation ended quite abruptly. They'd most likely be sent out again the next time one of these illegal transactions occurred - a pretty miserable job (definitely a punishment for mucking things up as far as Tonks was concerned) considering the substance being traded was bottles of nundu breath. Tonks thought it was a bit of a chore for an Auror, and could probably be handled by regular Magical Law Enforcement, but Moody and Proudfoot had insisted that anyone trading such a dangerous substance was probably a Dark wizard in need of some investigating. There was some conspiracy afoot that everyone seemed to know about _but_ Tonks, and no one was telling her, which was really kind of driving her a bit mad.

That night, as they sat in Mr. Backstrom's back room and Shacklebolt began threading his wrecked carpet through to repair it, she asked him as much.

"Shacklebolt - " she began.

"You know, you may call me Kingsley if you like," he told her. "As long as no one else hears you, I suppose. Since I'm supposed to be Gideon."

"Right. Well. Just stick to Tonks for me, _thanks_," she said. "All right, Kingsley. Is there something I'm...missing?"

"Missing in what way, Tonks?" He started pushing the foot pedal to the loom, and it began to clack loudly, so Tonks picked up her voice a little.

"You and Moody and Proudfoot - and some of the others, too, Vance for sure, and I've heard Savage speak of it too - you just seem to do an awful lot of talking about things that no one ever tells me. What's going on? Some sort of secret Auror thing that Tonks the B-level klutz doesn't get to know about?"

Shacklebolt - Kingsley - Gideon, _whoever_ he was supposed to be, frowned a little. "That's...not it," he said, tugging the brown and purple strands tighter.

"Then what _is_ it? It's something serious, I can tell," she said. Tonks was especially good with _faces_, and she could see it, in the thick crease of his dark brow as he struggled with it. The fire in his eyes fluctuated, and finally he spoke again.

"Auror Tonks," he said, and it was very serious indeed. "You know that there are rumors about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the Dark Lord, beginning to regain some of his power."

"Yeah, what of it?" she said with a bit of a huff. "They're just rumors."

"I don't believe that they are," said Kingsley.

"Oh really? How do you figure?"

"You were...too young, I suppose, the last time," he said. "No one saw it coming then, either. No one but Albus Dumbledore, and damned if he didn't do his best to stop it from coming."

"I wasn't even in school yet," she said, her voice growing fainter. "All I remember is one Christmas we just stopped going to Grandmother's. Mum said to us, 'let's all stay home this year, just the three of us.' I was so upset, because I didn't get nearly as many presents."

"I was just out of school, and terrified." He took up the gold threads now, pushing them into the pattern, and Tonks could see it beginning to look like it once had again. "All I knew was that Dumbledore had never failed me, or Hogwarts, or the whole wizarding world. He was the only person I found myself able to trust. And so I trust him still to this day."

"And so he says You-Know-Who is coming back, so you think You-Know-Who is coming back?" she said, not really looking at him, fascinated by the in-out weaving of the loom.

"I think that whether he is or not, I want to be on the right side," said Kingsley. "That is why I joined the Order of the Phoenix."

"The what of the phoenix? What is that?"

"It's a secret organization run by Dumbledore himself, to fight back against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and make sure that the Dark Arts never again overrun this country," he said. "And we could use as many Aurors as we can get."

"Hang on," said Tonks, "you want _me_ to come join this Order of yours?"

"Of Dumbledore's," he said.

"What use could you possibly have for me?" she said. "I'm not very _secretive_. Quite bad at it, actually. And I - I can't even fly a broom, for Merlin's sake."

"Every hand will help."

"And anyway, I'm a bloody Hufflepuff. I bet the whole stinking lot of you are Gryffindors anyway, it's going to look great when all of you go charging in and I trip over my own two feet trying to run away - "

"But your heart is in the right place," said Kingsley. "And against Dark forces like this, that is really all that matters."

Tonks fell silent. _Was_ her heart in the right place? She realized quite suddenly that he was right. Even if her biggest problem as a child had been missing family Christmas, she'd grown up understanding that her father was somehow _different_ because he was a Muggle-born - and it was a kind of different that You-Know-Who and his supporters definitely weren't standing for. If they were coming back - if anything could happen to her family, to her _father_ - Tonks was going to stand up against that. Her father had never done anything to hurt anyone. He was a Mediwizard, for crying out loud.

"I'll do it," she said firmly, and she meant it. She _would_ join the Order of the Phoenix.

But how in the world had Kingsley known her answer before even she did?

-xxx-

Tonks was discovering very quickly that Middle-of-Nowhere, Sweden was actually quite boring.

Kingsley was content to sit in his room at the inn and read a book by day, waiting until the evening when the loom at Mr. Backstrom's house was available to continue working on the magic carpet. He said it would most likely take about three days of diligent work to finish. Tonks, however, had always done...poorly, with being cooped up.

On day one she decided she needed to explore about the town. This didn't last very long, of course, since there wasn't much town to explore, but she did find a nice little confectioner's shop and purchase an absurd amount of flavored honey sticks. By the afternoon she'd wandered back to the inn, and plunked herself down in Kingsley's room to chat more about this Order business (and give him the little bag of peppermints she'd got for him, since she remembered somewhere that he really liked those). He told her all about things: his friend Gideon, who'd died working for the Order the last time around, and the misguided opinions of the even the Ministry itself, and he talked an awful lot about Harry Potter. While he sat and worked on the carpet, Tonks just sort of sucked at her honey sticks and watched him talk, not even capable of taking it all in. There were times when all she really did was listen to Kingsley's low, rumbling voice and the clacking of the loom, and wonder how she'd even got here in the first place.

Day two saw her getting even more restless, so when Olga offered her some chores to do, she gladly took her up on them. She snuck a little magic in to make some of it easier - you did not grow up in Andromeda Black Tonks's house without learning a couple of good cleaning spells, whether you wanted to or not - and she made sure the windows were as sparkling as possible. From within his room, where he sat filling out some paperwork on their aborted mission, Kingsley flashed her another of his rare, bright-white smiles. Of course, then he laughed outright as she nudged her bucket of soap-water right over waving back at him, and it spilled all down the left leg of her trousers. Making sure no one else was looking, she spelled them dry, and set off to finish the east side of the building.

She ended up all the way on the roof by the time she was finished, and discovered that she could see a lot of the town from there - the little clock tower, and Kajsa and Karl's house, and the place where she'd bought the candy. She also discovered that not many people could see _her_ from up there, and that's when she started having fun. From above, she could use her wand to snipe at people - nothing but harmless stuff, mostly just turning their hair bright colors, though on one occasion she spotted a man yelling unnecessarily at his small son and made a bright yellow bird fly out of his mouth instead. She was just edging out to the side of the roof, taking better aim at a shopkeeper who was outside airing out a musty rug - she was going to make all the dust swirling out of it bright pink - when her left hand slipped, and so her shoulders slipped, and so her whole body slipped, and she fell clean off the roof to the ground in front of the inn.

Or rather, she would have, if Kingsley hadn't miraculously stepped out of the door at just the right time to catch her. _Again_. This was getting to be a bit ridiculous.

He looked down at her, where she was sprawled somewhat more akimbo than she'd have liked in his what now seemed _ridiculously_ strong and solid arms. He'd caught her like it was nothing, and while part of Tonks was glad no one else had been around to see it, part of her almost wished someone _had_ been there as a witness. This hadn't even been magic. This had just been some kind of freak-of-nature luck or skill or...or _something_. And even though the adrenaline rush of her fall had passed, her heart was still beating something furious.

"W...wotcher, Gideon," she finally stammered.

"You should be more careful," he said, "Molly."

He set her back down, and together they began the walk over to Mr. Backstrom's house, but she could still feel his arms, sort of, pressing at the backs of her knees and across her spine just under her shoulderblades. They were still warm, like that night in Kajsa's spare room when they'd had to share the bed, under the guise of siblings. Warm like his smile had been while she'd been washing the windows, just moments before splashing the cleaning bucket all down the front of her.

A classic clumsy Tonks maneuver.

But one she was suspecting came less from classic clumsy Tonks, and more from that brief flash of warm smile.

When they got back to the inn that night, Tonks lingered in the doorway to Kingsley's room for a few moments. He'd begun to get himself ready for bed already when he realized she wasn't leaving, and merely gave her an inquisitive look.

"So er, that carpet, almost done there?"

"I'll most likely finish it tomorrow, yes. Then Tuesday morning we can leave and head back to London."

"Sounds great," she said. "Shame none of this really panned out. Moody's going to have my hide, I just know it. You know, one of these days, something _isn't_ going to be my fault, and he's going to get so confused that he'll probably just take it out on me anyway for consistency's sake."

Kingsley furrowed his eyebrows and answered in deadpan, "Well, I'm sorry you feel that way."

Tonks chuckled. "Nah. No worries, you know? Be glad to get back to England. I've heard people actually speak English there." She rubbed at the cuff to the sleeve of her shirt. Underneath, her skin was having a hard time staying dark enough.

A few moments later he spoke to her again. "Tonks...do you plan on standing there all night?"

"Oh!" Was she really still standing in the door to his room? "Right. G'night then."

"I'll see you in the morning," he assured her. Awkwardly, she shuffled across the hall to her own room, shut the door, turned out the light, and sprawled across her own bed, without even taking off her shoes or any of her regular clothes. Nymphadora Tonks, B-level Auror and Offensive Sorcery Specialist, lay on her back and sighed up at the ceiling above her. She wanted to go back to England.

Didn't she?

After sitting alone with her thoughts for a moment or two, she got up and snuck out of her room's window. Anyone bigger than her wouldn't have fit, and she scuffed pretty badly at the bushes below. But she had something that, for some reason, she really had to do.

-xxx-

For most of day three, Tonks stuck fairly close to Kingsley. She needed to confirm her strange suspicions, she told herself. She sat around in his room as he finished up the paperwork, giving her input here and there when he needed it. When he finally finished up, she bounced to her feet from where she'd been sitting on the edge of his bed and stood up straight.

"Tonight I believe that we ought to go out for dinner," she stated.

Kingsley hooked a paperclip over his packet of reports and turned in his chair to face her. "You do?"

"Well sure," she said. "We are in Sweden, after all, and I think before we go back to England we ought to experience a little bit more of Swedish culture."

"This town is quite small," he reminded her. "I'm worried we've experienced as much of it as there is to experience."

"Of course not!" said Tonks. "Listen, this is something I learned from my father, and it's helped me a lot with Auror stuff too - you have to treat everything like you're really truly looking for something. You know us Hufflepuffs, we can find just about anything. I say we spend today looking for the best possible restaurant this town has to offer, and then we splurge some gold on an enormous dinner. Then afterward you can go er, go finish the carpet, and we'll at least have done _something_ with our little accidental vacation."

Kingsley studied on her for a moment, and then his eyes sort of took on a smiling shine. "Well all right then."

Together they left the inn, Tonks still dark-complected and calling him Gideon, and strode through the streets of their tiny Swedish town. There was a bistro that was cooking vast pots of dumplings, selling them as fast as they could cook them to working men on their lunch breaks. A little stand down on the other end of town was selling mugs of blueberry soup - which sounded extraordinarily strange to Tonks, but smelled pretty wonderful - but they passed that up, too. Tonks knew immediately upon finding the right spot that it was the right spot - a hole-in-the-wall eatery run by one of the fattest men she had ever seen, that seemed to put absolutely anything and everything one might ever want on a sandwich. Tonks didn't think she had ever seen so many kinds of _bread_ - and none of them were even wizard-type foods. Muggles had done all of it. It didn't quite seem possible.

She grinned to Kingsley. "See? What did I tell you! Come on, it's got to be here, and right now, I'm _starved_."

"I could definitely eat," he said, and he followed behind her to a little two-seat table in the back. It was hard to parse their orders in their broken English-Swedish mix with the waiter, but Tonks decided she didn't really care what she ended up getting in the end, as long as it was on that yellowish-colored bread and didn't have anything resembling cottage cheese.

"This is phenomenal," she said after two or three bites. "Ugh, I want to savor it but I just can't stop eating it."

"It is quite good," Kingsley agreed. "I - I don't even know what it is, but it tastes wonderful."

"That is the whole _point_ of foreign cuisine," Tonks declared, taking a judicious swig of her heavily-creamered coffee.

"Mm, watch the ah - " Kingsley touched a finger to his own upper lip, and Tonks reached up to check herself, wiping away the small bit of froth that had gotten stuck there.

"Er, thanks," she said, smiling at him. She found that _smiling_ seemed to be connected to _at him_ quite often lately. Her suspicions were definitely being confirmed.

"You know, I think I'll be happy," he said, in a low voice, "when we can stop pretending you're my sister."

Tonks opened her mouth to question that, but his mouth was conveniently full of sandwich. Instead she just took a bite of her own again, and flickered the very tips of her hair a bright pink, just for a second or two.

At Mr. Backstrom's house, Tonks lay sprawled out on the floor - a difficult task, as there wasn't much floor to sprawl out on - while Kingsley sat at the loom.

"Oh, Merlin, I have the worst relationship with this feeling," she groaned. "I've eaten so much I feel like I could either burst quite messily or just float peacefully away. I hope I don't get sick later."

"If you do," said Kingsley, "please try not to do it on my carpet. I'm having enough trouble with it as it is."

"Oh, er, really?" said Tonks, scratching at the roots of her hair - with no one around she was _Tonks_ again, and her hair had gone back to completely pink and grown a couple of inches, making her scalp itch. "What's wrong with it, then?"

"Well, I could have sworn I'd completed much more of it than this by the time we left last night," he said. "I'm worried that someone has unraveled part of it and undone a good bit of my progress on purpose."

"You don't say," she said. "Maybe Mr. Backstrom has a - a grandchild, or something, another person visiting in the house that would get a laugh from tangling up someone else's hard work."

"Much like you get a laugh from charming canaries out of people's throats?"

Tonks flushed, the same color as her hair but several tints lighter. "Saw that, eh?"

"You might want to watch how much magic you throw around in this little Muggle town, Tonks." He paused. "But there really was no need for that man to be shouting at his son like that."

Tonks grinned. "There wasn't! It just seemed sort of hateful." She rolled and sat up, and her stomach sloshed almost painfully. "Sometimes I think, Wouldn't it be great if everyone that had hateful words to say to each other just spat out canaries instead. It'd make for a much nicer world over all, wouldn't you say?"

"I would say, Auror Tonks, that it is _that_ reasoning that makes you perfect for the Order of the Phoenix," said Kingsley, weaving away at his carpet.

Tonks sighed a bit. "The Order...Merlin, Kingsley, things _are_ getting really serious, aren't they?"

"Things are always serious, I'm afraid," he said. "It's just the way of the world."

They were silent for a bit, and Tonks mostly tried to focus on digesting.

"But don't worry too much," he finally said. "I'm nearly done here, and we can definitely be back to England by Wednesday."

-xxx-

At half past midnight, Tonks slinked back out of the window of her room at the inn again. It was frigid with the sun down, but she didn't care, just pulled up the hood of her cloak and ducked her head to the wind, pushing through the little Swedish streets. She had the quickest way there memorized by now, and it only took a soft _Alohomora_ to get in the back way and tiptoe into the room with the loom.

Apparently Kingsley had already had the same idea.

"Hello, Tonks."

"Er, wotcher, Kingsley," she said, slumping. "Caught, I suppose."

"You may be an Auror, but so am I," he said. "Care to explain why you've been unraveling my carpet - on _purpose_ this time?"

Tonks didn't really care to explain. She wanted things explained to _her_ - the Order of the Phoenix, and You-Know-Who, and Harry bloody Potter. She wanted to know why she hadn't been to her grandmother's house since she was seven, or to see her aunt Narcissa who always had the house-elves make her gingerbread. She wanted to know how Kingsley seemed to know everything about her before she did, how he was one step ahead of her, even now.

"I - I don't want to go back to London," she said, and then she started crying.

Kingsley's warm, broad arms were around her almost instantly, her face pressing into his chest and probably making a mess of his cloak, but she just couldn't stop. "I'm scared," she said. "I don't know what any of this means. I just want my Christmas presents back."

"Shhh," he said to her, "hush. I know how you feel - I've felt it too. But this is what's _right_." He pulled her back away from him, and she knew he could see her runny nose and her puffy eyes, and she was amazed at how he just didn't seem to _care_. "You should never be afraid of what's right."

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

He gave her an absolutely brilliant smile. "It's all right."

Then he kissed her, softly, on the forehead, and then she kissed him not-so-softly on the lips. Her suspicions were confirmed one hundred percent at this point and she couldn't help it, she just kept kissing him, kept relishing in the way that he was kissing back. She felt so small next to him, her slim hands gripping in the thick fabric of his cloak where it spread across his broad chest, and his strong arms wrapped around her narrow waist, holding onto her, catching her.

Because Tonks knew she was falling. She understood falling better than most people.


End file.
